But their position in this respect was an extremely
delicate one. On one side of them zealous Catholics were exorcising
devils, who shrieked out their testimony to the eternal truth of the
Holy Catholic Church; whilst at the same time, on the other side, the
zealous Puritans of the extremer sort were casting out fiends, who bore
equally fervent testimony to the superior efficacy and purity of the
Protestant faith. The tendency of the more moderate members of the
party, therefore was towards a compromise similar to that arrived at
upon the question how the devils came by the forms in which they
appeared upon the earth. They could not admit that devils could actually
enter into and possess the body of a man in those latter days, although
during the earlier history of the Church such things had been permitted
by Divine Providence for some inscrutable but doubtless satisfactory
reason:--that was Catholicism. On the other hand, they could not for an
instant tolerate or even sanction the doctrine that devils had no power
whatever over humanity:--that was Atheism. But it was quite possible
that evil spirits, without actually entering into the body of a man,
might so infest, worry, and torment him, as to produce all the symptoms
indicative of possession. The doctrine of obsession replaced that of
possession; and, once adopted, was supported by a string of those
quaint, conceited arguments so peculiar to the time.
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